We have about a month and a half until the basketball world heads to Cleveland for the 2022 NBA All-Star Game. On Thursday afternoon, we got our first glimpse of which players the fans want to participate in the game, with a pair of former teammates leading the vote getting in the respective conferences.
The NBA announced that four players — Giannis Antetokounmpo, Steph Curry, Kevin Durant, and LeBron James — have each eclipsed the two million vote mark. Of that quartet, Durant sits atop the Eastern Conference with more than 2.3 million votes, while Curry has more votes than anyone else in the league, as the Golden State Warriors guard has just a hair below 2.6 million.
Golden State's Stephen Curry and Brooklyn's Kevin Durant lead the Western and Eastern Conferences, respectively, in the first fan returns of NBA All-Star Voting presented by Tissot.
The next NBA All-Star fan voting update will be shared Thursday, Jan. 13. pic.twitter.com/B0kSITw4Sr
— NBA Communications (@NBAPR) January 6, 2022
Both Curry and Durant have been captains in the All-Star Game in the past, but the former teammates have never gone head-to-head as captains — should these results hold, it would mark the first time since the NBA adopted its current All-Star format that James is not representing one of the conferences as a captain.
In total, 12 players from each conference will earn the distinction of being an All-Star. The honor is not just determined by fan vote, as current players and members of the media both get a say in who makes it. Fan voting makes up 50 percent of the vote, while players and the media each get 25 percent.
